Initiative (The Red Gambit Series Book 6)

by Colin Gee

Davies one-four decided to cut the whining short, and a woodbine flew across the gap.

  “Oh ta, one-four, very decent of you.”

  Ensuring that his rotund frame was properly concealed behind the counter of the ruined tobacconists shop, May flicked his lighter and drew in the pungent smoke.

  “Fags out, you bastards.”

  May looked at the Sergeant as if he was a member of the Spanish Inquisition.

  “I’ve just lit the bastard, Sarge.”

  “Well, fucking unlit it, Corp’ral. We’re getting set to go now, boys. Change of plan. Rupert’ll fill us in shortly.”

  The sergeant, Jones nine-five, dropped down next to his brother, Jones five-nine, and stretched his legs, easing the aches and pains of the day’s exertions.

  The ‘Rupert’ arrived within seconds, bringing with him the wonderful news of the Soviet surrender.

  2nd Lieutenant Gethin Jones lit up a celebratory cigarette as he explained the plan and the delay, May giving Jones nine-five the evil eye as he relit his own battered offering.

  Close on Gethin Jones’ heels came the most hated man in the Fusiliers.

  Major Stephen Monmouth-Kerr, or as he was known to pretty much everyone…Wayne.

  The general description offered by his men tended to include the words ‘posh twat’, ‘arrogant’ and, perhaps most unforgivably, ‘useless’.

  ‘Wayne’ had decided to move forward with the first wave, perhaps to acquire some of the glory that his old military family had been steeped in, as he was so fond of telling his subalterns whenever they stood still long enough.

  Most thought it was simply to find some item around which he could concoct a story of great valour.

  The assembled soldiers shared a common thought.

  ‘Twat.’

  As the seconds passed, the men of 1st Platoon readied themselves.

  The support gunfire from 83rd Field Regiment had been cancelled, although the experienced gunners were waiting… ready just in case anything went wrong.

  0000 hrs, Tuesday 18th June 1946, frontline positions, 4th Royal Welch Fusiliers, Brandsende, Hamburg, Germany.

  “Right-ho, Lieutenant. Move your platoon forward. Chop-chop.”

  Gethin Jones rose swiftly and waved his sten.

  “Come on then, boys… after the Major now.”

  The younger officer deferred to the company commander, and Major Monmouth-Kerr suddenly found himself outside his comfort zone and in front of his men.

  Taraseva held the flare pistol close and automatically checked above her to ensure she could get the last flare up through the ruins.

  The gap was sufficient and she smiled, wondering if the single green flare she had left would be enough for her needs.

  It took her only a moment to understand that there was nothing she could do, even if it wasn’t, so she contented herself with calming those soldiers around her.

  “Wait, Comrades… wait… wait…”

  The Major managed to find a torturous route to scramble through, but still hit the paving of Brandsende ahead of the others.

  His bravado increased and he encouraged the men forward with his revolver, the ice white of its lanyard waving about as he pointed at the men around him.

  “Come on, Sergeant. Get a move on… no hanging back, man.”

  Jones nine-five’s look was lost in the darkness of the night and he bit his tongue, halting the retort at source.

  Jones five-nine leant in closer as he hauled himself over a large lump of masonry.

  “Come along, nine-five, stop skulking now, you old gont.”

  The sergeant aimed a swing at the back of his brother’s head, which was as easily evaded as it was expected.

  “Shut it, you little bastard. Show some respect for your betters.”

  Instinctively, he put out a hand to help his younger brother over the next obstacle.

  “I’ll do that when I find someone better, nine-five.”

  The younger soldier received a less than helpful push towards the final barrier in their stealthy advance across the small street.

  Left and right of them, the men of A Company were doing the same, and the entire company had now left the safety of the ruined buildings that had formed their defensive position.

  Fusilier Cornish, the 1st Platoon number one gunner, had established his post back in the same buildings, and his Bren gun moved gently from left to right as he scanned the dark rubble ahead for threats.

  The two Jones brothers moved apart and Sergeant Jones 95 found the unit’s unofficial medic, Davies one-four, on his shoulder.

  “Something’s wrong, Sarge.”

  Jones’ arm shot up, and those around him stopped and dropped as low as they could, the effect rippling outwards in both directions.

  Fig# 187 – the Battle of Hamburg

  “What, one-four?

  Only the Major failed to stop, and he moved slowly forward to the threshold of some unidentifiable building.

  Turning around to order some soldier to proceed inside before him, Monmouth-Kerr suddenly realised he was alone and quite exposed, which was not a very satisfactory state of affairs for him, and he went to move back, intent on ripping some poor unfortunate off a strip.

  As Davies one-four explained his feelings on the absence of any display of surrender from people supposed to be surrendering, the matter was spectacularly resolved.

  Captain Taraseva saw the line of advancing British drop to one knee, which alarmed her.

  The leading man, clearly an officer, suddenly turned his back and moved back, displaying unusual urgency.

  ‘Blyad! They know we’re here!’

  A green flare exploded overhead, drawing nearly every eye.

  Less than a second later, all hell broke loose.

  Major Monmouth-Kerr was the first to die, literally coming apart as a burst from a DP28 took him from the small of the back to the top of his head, spreading his blood, guts, and brains over the unfortunate Gethin Jones.

  Two of the bullets also hit the Lieutenant, and he dropped to the street, his shoulder and neck penetrated by the DP rounds.

  Bullets slammed into the rubble around the Welshmen, claiming victims with ricochets as much as direct hits.

  Sergeant Jones sustained such a wound in the rump of his ass; painful, nothing more.

  Jones six-six took a direct hit in the mouth that detached his complete lower jaw, but, despite the horrendous gaping wound, still managed to make his animal-like screams louder than the growing firefight around him.

  Most of the wounds were upper body and head, and the Royal Welch suffered badly in the opening exchanges.

  Jones nine-five, the senior man for yards in any direction, quickly decided to get the hell off the street.

  He shouted in all directions, gaining the attention of the men around him.

  “Grenades… grenades!”

  He waved a Mills bomb in all directions to emphasise his point.

  Those who could see, grabbed for their own little bomblet and readied themselves for the orders.

  Sergeant Jones grimaced as the nearby Fusilier Simpson took a ricochet in the side of the head.

  Davies 14 was on hand, and quickly started work on the nasty wound.

  Jones nine-five pulled the pin, holding the Mills in plain sight. His actions were mirrored along the line.

  He ducked as a round clipped his helmet, cursing inwardly at his own stupidity for raising his head out of cover.

  Using his other hand, he held up three fingers.

  Allowing the lever to spring clear, he dipped the grenade arm in a clear fashion, counting out the three seconds, before raising himself up and sending the deadly charge into the rubble, aiming at the flashes of weapons to his front.

  His grenade arrived with a number of others.

  The sharp cracks of the detonations were all Sergeant Jones nine-five needed.

  “Charge! Up and at the baaarrrssstttaaarrrdddsss!”

  He was moving immediately, in fact
two grenades went off as he rose, and he plunged forward into the ruins ahead of him, followed by a tidal wave of fusiliers, yelling anything that came to mind, and firing as they charged.

  A number of the Soviet defenders had been killed or wounded by the grenades, and most had ducked instinctively.

  Some were out of ammunition already, others had some left to use.

  A few fusiliers fell on the run-in, but most slammed into Taraseva’s defensive line.

  Corporal May stumbled as he tried to leap the barricade.

  The bayonet took him in the throat, missing everything vital but transfixing him to a door that lay on the floor.

  He scrabbled at the blade, slicing the flesh of his fingers.

  The female mortar corporal, screaming in her fear, pulled the trigger as she remembered she had once been instructed, almost blowing May’s head off his shoulders.

  She, in turn, took a rifle butt in the side of the head, as Corporal Robinson came up on her blind side.

  The young girl was dead before she toppled over the barricade and onto May’s corpse.

  The Royal Welch outnumbered the defenders, and were in a lot better physical condition, but some of the Soviet troops had earned their spurs on the streets of Kharkov against Hitler’s SS, and were not easily shrugged aside.

  Jones five-nine and Steven eight-five found themselves suddenly isolated and opposed by a group of dreadfully thin soldiers, who fought with the desperation of experienced men.

  An entrenching tool just failed to remove Steven’s head, clipping the ear, cutting in to the hairline, and sending gobbets of blood in all directions.

  A knife ploughed a furrow in Jones nine-five’s thigh, but the perpetrator received short shrift, the butt of the Enfield rifle hammering into the man’s throat, wrecking everything vital in an instant, and dropping the veteran soldier to the ground.

  A glancing blow knocked Steven eight-five’s rifle from his hand, shattering the thumb and two fingers on his right hand.

  Incensed, as Steven was a boxing champ within his battalion, he clubbed his adversary with a fist on the top of the head, sending the man to the floor.

  He dropped onto the insensible man’s chest knees first, breaking a number of bones, and punched him four times in the face for good measure.

  The dying man spouted frothy blood with each breath, and Steven eight-five transferred his attention elsewhere.

  Ignoring the excruciating pain from his right hand, he dragged a soldier off Jones five-nine, the Russian having pinned the younger Jones brother to the rubble where he tried to throttle the life out of him.

  Grabbing up a British pudding bowl helmet, Steven slammed the edge into the back of the man’s head, breaking bone and driving the rim into the skull cavity.

  The two Welshmen were suddenly reinforced, and soon the small knot of enemy resistance was overcome, mainly with fatal consequences for the Soviet soldiers.

  The fighting stopped as quickly as it had started, and the Soviet positions were in fusilier hands.

  Part of the buildings was burning, illuminating a modest space, within which a handful of men gathered.

  Lieutenant Gethin Jones had been brought forward, purely for his own safety, and Davies one-four used the light to check his handiwork.

  Mike Robinson carefully laid the body of Fusilier Simpson on the old table, the killing wound apparent on his forehead.

  Sergeant Jones nine-five organised the survivors of first platoon into some sort of order, and then took time out to see to Gethin Jones, and to inform him of what had come to pass since the officer had been taken out of the equation.

  All of this was observed by Captain Malvina Ivana Taraseva, as best she could, given her predicament.

  She had been one of the first casualties of the engagement, taking solid hits from the Bren gun of Fusilier Cornish.

  Her left breast, left shoulder, and left arm were all wrecked by the passage of the heavy .303 bullets.

  She then received shrapnel hits from the deadly Mills bombs, a number of pieces of hot metal taking her low in her groin and legs.

  Her ginger hair was much redder on her left side, where blood continued to squirt and pulse.

  Covered with gore and with limbs set at unusual angles, the British had clearly assumed she was dead and had ignored her.

  Her one good limb was her right arm, and in it she held one of the F1 grenades that Mogris had sent her.

  Moving carefully, so as not to attract attention, she used her teeth to pull the pin and gently, pressing the grenade to her surviving breast, allowed the lever to detach without the normal noise that marked its separation.

  She then threw the grenade into the fire-illuminated area.

  Jones five-nine extended his flask to his brother, its contents decidedly non-regulation.

  “Not bad work for an old bastard, Sergeant, even if I do say as part of the family like.”

  Jones nine-five moved to take the offered drink and then shouted, pushing his brother out of the way.

  The men around the small area tensed and sought threat in the area round them, only Sergeant Jones having seen the real threat arrive in their midst.

  “GRENADE!”

  He threw himself forward, his body landing to cover the deadly object, to absorb its blast and deadly metal, the man’s instinct being to look after his boys, come what may.

  His brother, Jones five-nine screamed.

  “NOOOOO!”

  The UZRGM fuse could be set from zero to a hair under thirteen seconds, not that anyone knew what it was that lay under their sergeant’s body.

  Time stood still as the fusiliers scattered for their lives.

  Silence.

  Disbelieving silence.

  Incredulous silence.

  A silence broken by the voice of Sergeant Carl Jones nine-five, a voice that showed the strain of his predicament.

  “Right… ok, lads… get everyone moved away… shar…,” his voice broke slightly with the stress of the situation, “Look sharp now… look fucking lively, you gonts.”

  He reverted to insults to regain his composure, and was successful, accompanying the effort with deep breaths.

  “Robbo, let me know when everyone is safely outta the way, man.”

  “Sarge.”

  Robinson checked and waited whilst the wounded Gethin Jones was placed behind cover.

  “Sarge… we’re all clear.”

  Jones nine-five braced himself and, almost as if performing the longest press-up in the history of man, slowly pushed himself up and off the grenade.

  When he was sure he was clear, he moved to examine it, not daring to touch it, but purely using eye contact.

  He took a quick look around and determined a safe area, his decision to throw the device into a quiet corner taken in spite of himself, his hand now shaking with approaching shock.

  Taraseva watched on, incredulous that the grenade had not killed a number of the capitalist swine, incredulous that the thing had not even exploded, and incredulous that the grenade was now in the air and heading straight back at her.

  The hunk of metal struck her in the centre of her stomach and dropped into the bloody remains of her lap.

  The F1 did not explode. It could never explode, as the spring had long since seized within the fuse casing.

  Taraseva had not known that it failed to explode, the moment it struck her coincided with the closing down of her system due to blood loss.

  The unconscious woman passed quickly into death as the enemy celebrated the incredible escape of their NCO.

  “You stupid, stupid bastard!”

  “Fucking hell, Sarge… I mean… fucking hell!”

  The words of congratulations, surprise, horror at his act, or whatever, were all accompanied by slaps and handshakes.

  For his part, Carl Jones had drained completely of any colour, and had even accepted the lit cigarette that someone had stuck in his hand, taking a deep drag before he remembered that he didn’t actuall
y smoke.

  Second Company troops moved forward, their brief to advance to contact, as Soviet officers and NCOs, escorted by men from the Fusiliers and the HLI, fanned out through the Soviet defences, yelling out in their native language, calling upon the last defenders to surrender.

  Llewellyn, accompanied by a horrified Mogris, arrived in the front line to establish what exactly had happened.

  Satisfied that the bloodbath had not been caused by his own men, the Royal Welch’s CO assigned Captain Thomas, one of his headquarters officers, to help in sorting out 1st Company’s organisation, and headed off in the wake of 2nd Company.

  Elsewhere in Hamburg, similar incidents had taken place, some resulting in nothing more than silent surrender, others in tragedy.

  None the less, by the time that the dawn gathered the ruined city in its warm embrace, the Soviet resistance had ended, with most Red Army soldiers in organised captivity. A handful of diehards held out, but were quickly rooted out for blessedly few casualties amongst the British divisions.

  By the time that the evening stars became viewable, the vast majority of the Soviet force were enjoying the first decent food they had seen in weeks.

  Hamburg was retaken, and would not change hands again.

  2nd Lieutenant Gethin Jones refused to be taken to the casualty clearing station until he had made a report to Captain Thomas.

  Two days later, Thomas’ report was on Llewellyn’s desk, where it was read and endorsed.

  The report flew past a number of officers, rising in rank, before it made its way to London, and those who would decide on its contents.

  Jones nine-five had no idea.

  The sword was a very elegant weapon in the days of the Samurai. You had honor and chivalry, much like the knights, and yet it was a gruesome and horrific weapon.

  Dustin Diamond

  Chapter 158 – THE WEAPONS

  2303 hrs, Thursday, 20th June 1946, Ul. Rostovskaya, Sovetskaya Gavan, Siberia.

  One vessel had fallen to roving US aircraft from some anonymous carrier, the crew and cargo of I-15 now resting on the bottom of the Sea of Japan.